Coming Home

The prompt on One Minute Writer today is to write about coming home.

What does that mean? Home. The very literal, walking in your house at the end of the day, means being able to take a deep breath. A safe haven, for me. Lock out the pressures of the outside.
So many times out in the public view it means being "on" for extended periods of time. With clients you have to be up, knowledgeable, accomodating...on. With some family members I may have to be calm, patient, go out of my way to not make a fuss. For the general public I have a need to be polite, respectful, empathetic, helpful (I know, but it's who I am). So when I get home my shoulders relax, I smile at how happy my dogs are to see me, and I let go into Hubby's arms.

Is home where you live or where you're from? I live here, but home may always be on the coast, in that small ocean community of yesteryear. It's true that it's not the same place it used to be (you can never go home). When I was a young bride we lived a block away from the beach. I went to school in the mornings and took my dog to the beach every afternoon. The houses and duplexes in the neighborhood were inhabited mostly by elderly couples and low income renters. Today, it is a cauldren of drugs and prostitution. I'm not saying the whole town is like that but what I would consider a very desirable area is no longer that. So, no, that's not home.

My very favorite house along the coast was located in a Leave it to Beaver area, where kids ran around the neighborhood together, accepting of the varied ages of their playmates. Kind of like in my youth when we'd all go out and roller skate together. Life changed for us when we lived there. No longer a haven of loving, supportive relationships, it became a suspicious den of blame and unhappiness. No, that's not home either.

Home may be as big as a continent. When I think of the brave soldiers that are putting their lives at risk for our freedom, I'm so grateful. I know they would much rather be "home", in the U.S.

I think home is like the place Shawn Colvin sings about in her song, This Must be the Place.

Home.
That's where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there.

I come home
you lifted up your wings
I guess this must be the place.

Yeah. That's it.